It's been a long, strange trip for Kalanick's runaway success with Uber—now valued at $17 billion—and it wasn't a smooth trip, either.

"The last company I did was crazy stressful, because I had no money and was always trying to make it work and got a hundred 'no's' a day for six years straight, which is hundreds of thousands of 'no's,'" Kalanick told CNBC.

Benjamin Wachenje

"We will find out how small we can go, and as long as we can get the price low, we may be able to get to communities of 20,000 to 30,000 people."-Travis Kalanick, Uber founder and CEO

The controversy and competition may soon extend well beyond the major metro areas, where Uber has found its early success.

"We are still in the process of finding out how small a community Uber will work in," Kalanick said. "We've gone to cities as small as 90,000 people, and Uber does great. As we're moving out to smaller and smaller places, we will find out how small we can go, and as long as we can get the price low, we may be able to get to communities of 20,000 to 30,000 people," he explained.

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